Groundwater Foundation Awards Grants for Water Wells in Developing Countries

Three grants totaling $20,000 have been awarded to help build and restore drinking water wells in Uganda and Kosovo, the National Ground Water Research and Educational Foundation (NGWREF) announced this week.

The Atkinson Foundation/FEM project seeks to install a high-capacity water well and solar pumping system at the FEM Canaan Farm in Rakayata village, Masindi, Uganda. The NGWREF grant would pay a portion of the overall project cost of $27,000. The project will help 150 survivors of civil war who are trying to rebuild their lives on Canaan Farm.

The Nakaale Station project by the Committee on Foreign Missions for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church is in northeast Uganda. The project involves installing wells in four villages to serve up to 5,000 people. At present the people in these villages get their drinking water from polluted rivers, creeks and swamps.

The Tushile Safe Water Project developed by Water for Life will serve 800 villagers in Kosovo by capping 150 open wells to protect them from contamination, installing pumps in the wells and cleaning up sources of pollution.

“Thousands of people in these war-torn, impoverished counties will benefit from the safe drinking water that these projects will provide. For some, especially children under the age of five, these projects are a matter of life and death,” said Steve Schneider, MGWC and NGWREF president. “It was for projects such as these that the foundation created its Developing World Project Fund.”